1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to the field of electronic commerce, and more specifically, to analytic applications.
2. Description of Related Art
Business analytics include software tools and applications for tracking, analyzing, and modeling data in support of decision-making processes or in support of guiding specific actions based on analytic models and analytic applications, such guidance may be done automatically or with human (manual) interaction. Business analytics are typically used, but are not necessarily limited, to support business enterprise systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), etc. Applications that may benefit from business analytics include data warehousing, data mining, business intelligence, and other electronic commerce (e-commerce) applications.
Analytic applications involve some concept of data integration from multiple data sources, and a user interface consisting of a dashboard, query, report, alert (visual, graphical, auditory, automated, etc.). An analytic application typically includes data analysis, calculation, processing, and providing some representation to the user. Data are received from multiple sources (such as ERP, mainframes, websites, external data providers), integrated into a common model, processed, and analyzed to produce a result to be delivered to the user which then drives specific action or insight. In a typical business software environment, there may be a multitude of analytic applications designed to support specific applications according to some set of requirements or standards. A user often faces with a difficult task of selecting an analytic application or locating an appropriate analytic model (or report) that is suitable for his or her requirements.